As you may have heard, Anderson Cooper is in Gaza reporting on the latest Israeli/Palestinian conflict for CNN and doing his best not to get exploded in the process. This would probably be too much of a task for a normal human being for them to have the time or inclination to flame wingnut Twitter trolls on the side — but Anderson Cooper is no normal human being.

Why would anyone take issue with the Silver Fox risking his life to report from a war zone in the first place? Well, there’s a certain strain of wingnut that believes that, because Jesus was born there or something, Israel is infallible and can do whatever the hell it wants, while also believing that, because of 9/11, all Muslims are evil and should probably be killed. So the fact that Cooper is actually in Gaza reporting on both sides of the conflict is akin to treason to them or something. DANG LIBRUL MEDIA!

I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to burn someone for being a lazy, stay-on-the-couch chip eater, Fritos is the chip of choice for inflicting maximum burn, because Fritos are just terrible.

With that said, this here is some next level troll flaming…

You see what Anderson did there? He actually dug into her Twitter history for material and dropped a “coconut flan” bomb on this idiot. Well done, AC. Very well done. These Laker fan bros are certainly impressed…

I enjoy the Coconut Flan comment, but oh how I wish there’d been something more damning, like “@Pamela_Weiss spend less time being triple-teamed in the Stuckys bathroom and more time looking up facts #Airtight”

The trouble is, Pamela Weiss is correct in her statement and Anderson Cooper is a national figure who responds to random critics like as asshole. THAT is our society right now. We celebrate the idiot and demonize the intelligent because of who is funnier.

Why is the fact that the first poster chose to remain anonymous relevant to the fact that he’s a dick? Would #andersoncooper go out of his way to insult an anonymous user who agreed with him? There is no moral equivalency. The availability of anonymity is a necessity to free speech, because unfortunately our society has become a vicious and vindictive one, and anyone making controversial speech is at risk of what someone who agrees with that speech would call retaliation and bullying and someone who disagrees would try to justify with a word like “consequences” or something with a similarly faux authoritarian tone.

Like for instance, ANYTHING having to do with Israel. Supporting it makes you a mental invalid or a baby killer to some people. Not supporting it makes you a racist or a terrorist to others. Can you really blame anyone for wanting to speak their mind without giving their audience everything they need to bully them for having a differing view?

The internet-wide Facebook and Google+ driven assault on anonymity is nonsensical and unacceptable.